


An Iron in the Fire

by FluffyIsACatGirl (fabricdragon)



Series: Fan fic by fanfic characters [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Clint, Dubious Consent, Electricity, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, M/M, Master/Slave, Mutant Clint Barton, Mutant Hate, Mutant Politics, Mutants, Non-Consensual, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Slavery, Strangulation, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Top Clint Barton, mentioned - Freeform, threatened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:43:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/FluffyIsACatGirl
Summary: Tony Stark finds out one of his team mates isn't what he seems, and gets captured.Some dark themes, but I'm doing my best not to get too graphic, there is also humor.This is another "ostensibly written by my fan fic character Fluffy" fan fic.Yes very metaIt was going to be a one off, like the last one and got away from me.Updates Saturday when possibleReminder: this is written BY a mutant,(and a super villain) in a society that  dislikes mutants.





	1. Love Lies Bleeding

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Will You Walk Into My Parlor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472677) by [fabricdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/fabricdragon). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony was bored.  
> Tony got curious, and Tony followed the wrong Avenger, and got caught.

Tony Stark was bored.

Not that that was exactly news, or new, but it was usually easily cured with a few supermodels.  The problem was, it was just about to be fashion week in NYC.  From there the entire assembled flashbulb army moved to London, then Milan, and then Paris.  Oh, there was plenty to do… but the only models who weren’t about to drop with exhaustion were determined to be out on the red carpet and be seen: jump-start their careers, since they weren’t working.

So they would be all about being the shiny-pretty-thing-in-the-fabulous-clothes with Tony Stark, sure, but that didn’t alleviate the boredom. Red carpets bored him, and he had better people to be with than discarded or up-and-coming models.

Besides, half of them were too young.

So, it was the endless rounds of fashion parties, with the endless rounds of arm candy, most of whom bored him to tears.

So is it any wonder he decided to follow his fellow Avengers around?

Shit, at least one of them had to be up to something interesting. Deep dark secrets, strange fetishes? Something.

The hulk was nowhere to be found, and anyway he didn’t think whatever he did would be interesting.

Captain America apparently spent his free time coaching little league.

It took the best electronics, and stealth suits, his technology could come up with to follow Black Widow: now this had to be interesting, right? Murder? Blackmail? …

She took cooking classes.

All of them.

Baking on Monday; haute cuisine on Tuesday; pastry chef classes on Wednesday and Friday; oh yeah, and  Thursday she volunteered at a charity‑ cooking.

He went back to drinking out of sheer boredom.

Then one night he noticed that Hawkeye wasn’t around.  He usually stayed in the tower unless he was on a mission, so he hadn’t tried to follow him; after all, he never went anywhere.  But because Tony was awake at a bizarre hour, he noticed.

So then he decided to follow him, too.

Hawkeye changed into the “who me, nobody” uniform of the city: dark washed jeans, a t-shirt, and a fairly ordinary jacket, with baseball cap of course, and sauntered out.

Given the ridiculous lengths he had gone to in order to follow Black Widow, this was insultingly easy.

Hawkeye went into a non-descript warehouse district, and into a non-descript warehouse, but when the door opened you could hear music‑ at least if you had a stealth suit with audio amplifiers; they had good baffles.

“Amaranth,” Hawkeye said to the guy at the door.

The guy just nodded, not paying much attention, and let him in.

Now this… was interesting.

He came back hours later, looking like he’d had just a hair too much to drink, or a slight buzz of drugs, and went to bed.

When he went the next time – the models were just finishing up in Milan by now‑ Tony packed similar clothing  and walked up to the door about half an hour later.

“Amaranth,” he said casually.

The guy let him in; no cover apparently.

He walked through a perfectly normal warehouse, following the very faint sounds of music until he got to the heavy door, and went down the stairs.  Tony gave thanks that he had an enhanced earpiece or he would have been lost in the boxes.  He assumed the regulars already knew the way.

This was REALLY obscure for a nightclub.

Once the door opened all the thoughts left his brain, mostly because the noise was insanely high and he had the earpiece tuned all the way up. By the time he got it  turned off, without giving himself away, he was pretty well deaf in that ear from the  volume.

It was dark, lots of bodies moving, the only light being the stage and the bar; naturally, he headed for the bar.

Everything went fine until he tried to pay the bartender.

The guy looked a bit oddly at him, took the money and went over to another guy at the end of the bar…

Tony decided to leave.

When Tony got to the door there were two REALLY big guys who just picked him up and carried him to a back office.  He would have hit them with a stunner, but when he reached for it, it was gone, along with his wallet, keys, and everything.

All of which was sitting on the desk of a guy wearing leather pants and a chest full of leather straps.

“Well, well, well. I thought we had an ORDINARY gate crasher,”  the man said, looking him up and down. “Tony Stark. Huh.”

“Ok, I fess up, I wanted to know where a friend was going.” Tony smiled his best ‘win friends and influence people smile’.  “It looked like fun. Sorry, didn’t mean any harm, I was just bored.”

The guy didn’t look won over OR influenced.

He touched a button on his phone, “Find me any associates of Tony Stark in the club.”

_Shit, if I blew a mission…._

It didn’t take long for three people to come in. Tony’s mouth opened in shock.

The “Christian Lifestyle” reporter, who routinely used him as a bad example, stared at him. “No WAY he followed me in, sir.”

A model he vaguely remembered from years ago, currently on a leash to some guy he didn’t know, shook her head mutely.

And then Hawkeye walked in, looking furious.

“Stark! What the hell are you doing here?”

The guy behind the desk startled.  “Oh, yeah, I guess you do know him.”

_“I guess you do know him?”  Da fuq?  If he knew who Hawkeye was, he’d know we were both Avengers…_

“I’ll take care of it, Danny.”

_Danny, not sir?_

“Uh, hi?”

Hawkeye rounded on him with a look that froze him in his tracks. 

“Hey, Danny? I’m gonna be using playroom 4,” Hawkeye said with pure venom in his voice.

Danny just grinned.  The two big guys dragged him after Hawkeye, who was stalking ahead ignoring everything Tony said.

“Hawk, seriously, I was just bored, honest…”

Nothing.

Playroom 4 turned out to be a “playroom”, complete with restraints, overhead hooks, and all the trimmings. 

Hawkeye ordered the gorillas to cuff his hands to the winch.

By this point Tony figured this was a mission, and Hawkeye had to play the part.  Obviously once the goons were gone he could find out what was going on.

Once the goons left, and he was standing with his hands chained over his head, he tried to talk to him.

“Look, I’m sorry I followed you, I was just bored! And I‑“

Hawkeye turned around with a knife in his hand and proceeded to cut Tony out of his shirt and pants.

“Uh, Hawkeye? This… this isn’t funny anymore… you know, funny?”

“No, Tony, it isn’t funny.” He held the knife right up to Tony’s eyeball. “Who knows you are here and how long before an alarm sounds?”

“No one!” ‑it came out as a squeak‑ “And I don’t know, morning?”

“No one.” Hawkeye sounded disbelieving.

“Honest!  I was bored! It’s fashion week!”

Hawkeye lost some of the anger at that; mostly it was replaced with confusion. “It’s… fashion week?”

“Well, they’re in Milan by now, but really, it’s hell.”

Hawkeye lost most of the menace and pulled up a chair.  He sat down and looked up at Tony.  The overhead chain suddenly released, and Tony crashed to the ground.

“Stay down there, and explain what the FUCK you are talking about.”

Tony babbled at him about following the Avengers, little league, and cooking classes…. “You never went anywhere I thought, but I was up late one night…”

Hawkeye groaned, “So you followed me.”

Tony nodded frantically, “Because it was fashion week and I was bored.”

Tony cleared his throat.

“Did… did you know Natasha was taking cooking classes?”

“Yeah.”

“Planning on poisoning people?”

“No, she does that with drinks, flavored condoms, and lube.”

Tony froze.

“The problem, Tony,” Hawkeye said  conversationally, “is that you are HERE.”

“So? you take me out of HERE, and‑“

“No.”

“Uh, no?”

“If you leave here, alive, you belong to one of us.” Hawkeye looked thoughtfully at him. “That may have to be the answer.”

“Ooookay... Now I’m lost.”

“This… is a mutant club.”

Tony’s mouth went dry.

“The only non-mutants allowed are family, or owned.”  Hawkeye grimaced, “And damn few family.”

“How did you infiltrate it then?”

Hawkeye stared at him and then started laughing.  Eventually the laughter settled down enough to talk. “Are you SERIOUS?”

“Is that a trick question?”

The chain attached to Tony’s hands moved like a snake across the floor to Hawkeye’s hands.  He tossed it in the air where it rose to the ceiling, taking Tony with it.  In short order Tony was gasping for air, hanging from his wrists off the floor.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit… Telekinesis?!_

Hawkeye stood up and cocked his head. “You know, I’ve always kind of liked you, so instead of killing you and losing the body, or handing you over to one of the other people I know here… I think…” He smiled a bit sharply. “I think I’ll keep you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Lies Bleeding is another name for a type of Amaranth, the code phrase for the club.


	2. Leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony got caught, Now he finds out some of the rules.  
> sadly, not nearly enough.

Tony stared at him and then started to laugh. “OK, great gag. I admit it, you got me. You totally had me.  What happened, Widow actually spotted me and you two set this up?”

Hawkeye just shook his head. “You know, that would almost work as a cover. Really.  It’s a great idea, Tony, and if half the bloody club didn’t know you were here by now? I could make it work.  There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Stark Industries supplies a lot of technology, Tony.  Including a lot of technology the government uses to go after us.  There are too many people here who would argue to kill you, or keep you themselves.  The rules have kept us alive, and too many powerful people aren’t going to let you just walk.”

Hawkeye stood up.

“Besides, If you really want me to be honest, Tony… It’s been kind of galling to have to keep pretending to be the weak member of the team.”

He unhooked the cuffs from the chain and pulled him out into the club.

Tony kept trying to remind himself that he’d been caught in way less than his boxers and socks in a club before, but admittedly not in handcuffs…

Well, not at a dance club…

At least not sober.

He tried to pull away but it was like being marched along by Thor or something. _Since when did Hawkeye get that STRONG?_

Tony got shoved into what looked like a go-go dancer’s cage near the stage. “HEY!”

Hawkeye just ignored him and walked off to talk to someone.

A girl with cat ears grinned through the bars at him.  Tony stared. _No, really, she had cat ears._

“Ooooh, new toys!” she said. “Are they putting you up for auction…”

“If they did,” said a VERY large man, with an unpleasant smile, “you couldn’t outbid me.”

She hissed at him; she had insanely sharp teeth.  Tony hoped they were fake, but he didn’t think they were.

When the band finished the set, the lights came up, and the guy from the office‑ _Danny, wasn’t it_?‑ got up with a microphone.

“We have a treat tonight.” He sounded like every announcer in every club Tony had ever been in.

The crowd, predictably, cheered.

“We had an outsider try to spy on us and he got caught.”

The club noises took on a sound that sent chills up Tony’s spine. No one living had ever heard what the crowds sounded like when people were being thrown to Roman lions, but this had to be pretty close.

“The person he followed has put in his claim, so we get to watch the notorious Tony Stark…“

There was a mixed reaction to his name: some gasps, a few snarls.

“…get claimed by our own Hawkeye!”

THAT got cheering.

Hawkeye walked up and spoke into another microphone. “I know this is a bit unusual, but it’s better for all of our security that no one in the Avengers, or the agency, has any idea that this place exists… so Tony Stark will very publicly go back to his old life” ‑Hawkeye suddenly grinned‑ “as far as anyone else knows.”

The ‘Christian Lifestyle’ blogger – _what was her name, Christine?‑_ was standing smirking at the side of the cage. “I am SO looking forward to this.”

“If you think‑“  Tony started, and then he was hauled out of the cage and thrown into the middle of the dance floor.

“Uh, I don’t think a round of ‘Dance-Dance-Revolution’ is what you had in mind…” Tony said, warily looking at the mob surrounding him.

“No, not really,” Hawkeye said, throwing a bunch of leather straps onto the floor. “The critical part happens later; this is just for show, really.”

“It’s TRADITION!” the cat girl called from the side.

Tony was going to just stare him down‑a part of him still couldn’t believe this‑ when the straps moved all by themselves.  Tony bolted.

The leather strap wrapping itself around his throat and cutting off his air was bad; the leather strap that wrapped itself around Tony’s ankles meant that he fell in mid stride; the two that wrapped themselves around his wrists and yanked back were the only reason he didn’t hit the ground face first.

In short order he was hanging over the dance floor, gasping for air.

Most of the crowd just cheered and applauded‑he thought he saw a few looking sorry for him‑ but then it got too hard to see as he kept fighting for air.

Somehow he got flipped over in midair and then dropped… right into Hawkeye’s waiting arms.

People were cheering like it was all just a big performance, while Tony was struggling for air in Hawkeye’s arms.

The strap around his throat loosed and he was gasping desperately, seeing spots.

Hawkeye looked down at him. “You know… we’ve fought in the big leagues so often I forgot… without your armor you’re only human.”

Black spots were dancing in front of Tony’s eyes, as Hawkeye carried him off into one of the back rooms.

Someone put a hand on his head and everything just stopped.

 

Tony woke up in his own bed, gasping for air and panicking. _That had been the worst nightmare ever.  Weirdest one, too.  Clint as some kind of mutant Dom?  Weird._

His throat was burning…

“What was I DRINKING last night?”  He staggered over to the bathroom and started to wash…. up…

He stared at himself in the mirror. He had a spectacular bruise all the way around his neck.  Looking down he saw the same marks on his wrists and ankles, and bruises here and there in other places.

He practically dove on the phone to call the agency, and dropped screaming. 

Hawkeye came in at a dead run. “Aw shit, you got up already.

“Tony!” Hawkeye grabbed his wrist.

The horrific pain stopped, now it was just someone grabbing a bruised wrist.

“Hawk… what…” Tony panted.

“Yeah, you tried to call for help, didn’t you?”

“No,” Tony said, trying to back away from Hawkeye.

Hawkeye just grinned.  “Tony, If I was a cruel man, I’d just let you keep trying.”

Some kind of invisible force picked Tony up and threw him on the bed.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he found himself wondering about the physics of it all, but then Hawkeye was straddled on top of him.

Tony tried to throw him off, but something was pushing him into the bed. He started cursing him out and part of the sheets gagged him, all by themselves.

“You know,“ said Hawk  casually, “I never bothered to look up  your press much before. Apparently you aren’t JUST into girls; who knew?”

Tony’s eyes almost bugged out.

Hawkeye leaned over and the sheet moved away from Tony’s mouth.

“You-”

“If you are about to say ‘You can’t get away with this’, Tony, you need to stop it.  This isn’t a cheap novel.  We’re fighting for our lives.  You don’t fight fair when your lives are at stake, you know?  You will drop with screaming agony if you try to tell anybody anything about this.”

Tony shuddered and glanced toward the phone.

“As to me? That’s why I thought it would be better if I kept you, ‘Teammate’. Not only do you NOT have to disappear, or explain a strange new person who is always, always, there… but luckily for you, I’m not into forced sex.”

“If I can’t even run, anything you do is –“

“Oh, I didn’t say you were getting away free and clear, Tony. I just said I am SO not the worst thing that could have happened to you.

“Who knows, maybe we will have sex… or maybe I’ll just finally get to knock some of that arrogance out of you.”

“EVERYONE’s tried that!”

“Yeah, but you’re stuck with me…”

Hawkeye got off of him and the force holding him to the bed vanished.

“Get dressed, take a pain killer for the bruises, and make sure you wear a turtleneck; we have a press conference at two.” Hawkeye grinned evilly, “And I finally get to make sure you show up on time and stick to the script.”

“Or what? You’ll show off the fact that you’re a mutant? I don’t think THAT will work…”

Hawkeye just shook his head at him and grinned. “Along with everything else that got done to you, Tony… I have a few keywords‑ call them computer overrides on your brain.  Trust me, you don’t want me to use them.

“Get up, get dressed, and be on time Tony; it’ll be novel.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES, the fan fic author (Fluffy from "Will You Walk Into My Parlor") write a version of herself into the fiction. she just wrote herself in as a real cat girl.  
> the recursion level is kind of weird in this one.


	3. You asked for it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin  
> Tony Stark doesn't deal with being told what to do under the best of times, these are not the best of times  
> unfortunately he forgot there are more people involved.

Tony Stark was ‘obviously unwell’ during the press conference. Twice he’d thought about saying something, and before he could even open his mouth, he’d been hit with a flash of pain and nausea. 

Black Widow grabbed him by the elbow after the conference and hissed at him, “For God’s sake, Tony. Cut the drinking!”

Hawkeye had walked up briskly and said, “Take it easy on him, Widow; I had to drag him out of a club last night.”

The team, and the agency guys, just nodded.  A few of them thanked Hawkeye for looking after him.

“Hey, he needed a hand. We’re teammates, right?”

Tony managed to make it to the bathroom before he collapsed.  Hawkeye went in after him to ‘hold his head up’.

“Don’t make this any harder on yourself,” was all Tony heard as he lay on the floor trying to keep his head from splitting.

 

A few days later, the Avengers were in battle with a swarm of some kind of electronic termites; so, you know, Tuesday.

Iron Man blew one of the critters away and nearly hit the Hulk.

“Sorry, big guy… I…” _am in my suit; there’s nothing keeping me from hitting anyone._

Iron Man leveled the weapons straight at Hawkeye and fired. Hawkeye moved with blinding speed, but Iron Man still got a glancing blow on him.

“The HELL?!” Hawkeye yelled on the coms, “MEDIC!”

“Guys! Guys!” Iron Man yelled into the communication, “Help!” He fired at Hawkeye again, trying to anticipate his moves, but the guy dodged faster than he’d ever seen. “My suit’s out of control, something got the weapons systems!”

“FUCK you,” snarled Hawkeye into the mike, as half a building crashed down just behind him.

He got off two more shots, only hampered a bit by the rest of the Avengers trying to bring him down without hurting him, when the quick release lever inside his suit… released.

_Oh, yeah, all the Avengers had to know how to get him out of his suit, but…_

The suit blew apart in midair; if the Hulk hadn’t caught him, he would have been pretty seriously hurt. As it was, he spent a week in medical, and Hawkeye got escorted off to the agency medical by Black Widow with pretty bad injuries.

Naturally everyone thought he’d pulled the release.  He certainly wasn’t going to say otherwise.

Iron Man was off rotation for a few weeks; Hawkeye was apparently going to be in the hospital for about that long, and then he could come back to the tower to finish his rehab.  That meant the rest of the team was pulling triple duty, along with some poor agency guys who got shoved into advanced ‘combat against weird stuff’ classes.

Tony worked feverishly in his lab.  Officially, he was pulling apart the suit to find out what did that; unofficially, he was building a way to blow a non-descript warehouse off the map without it being traced, and kill Hawkeye.

Sadly, business kept interfering.

It was two weeks after the fight.  He’d just had to spend three days straight dealing with a Stark Industries issue.  He just wanted to get home. The new suit was almost done, and with the stealth mods‑

So of COURSE he had to go to this charity function; of course he did.

He’d just finished being charming, writing checks, and looking longingly at the exits when a woman walked up to him. She was stunningly good looking, had brought him a drink, and wanted to ‘talk’ about some charity.

“Do you think I could persuade you?” she purred into his ear as he sipped the scotch she’d brought him.

“Babe, I’m sure you could convince me to write a check.” He smiled at her and took her around the dance floor once.

_Man, being off alcohol for a couple weeks knocks your tolerance down; his coordination was way off._

“Maybe you should, oh, lie down?” she smirked at him. “With company to look after you?”

“Maybe.” He grinned back at her.

She led the way. Watching her walk was like watching… well he didn’t know what to compare it to, but she had hell of a nice ass.

Something dropped over his head and before he could even yell, he was hit‑HARD.

 

When he woke up he knew he was in trouble.  He was stripped nude‑and from the feel of it they hadn’t been gentle, either‑ and had his hands cuffed behind his back. He could hear people arguing.

“Stark Industries has a standard ransom allowance, you know,” he groaned. “But it gets better if I’m in good shape.”  He didn’t think they heard him.

He sat up slowly. The lights were on, and he was in some kind of big, open, far-too-bright-for-his-headache place.  He was in a… very…. familiar... cage... “Oh shit.”

Someone came through a door, in a direction away from the arguing.  She stopped dead when she saw him.

“Hey… hey, can you, um... help?” he said quietly.

She came over and peered into the cage.  Her ears swiveled forward. _Ears? Oh, right, the cat girl from… from before._

“Get me out of here and I’ll write you a blank check,” Tony said desperately.

Her eyes got rather comically wide. “Oooooh.... Wait, shit, what are you doing here?”  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You shot Pointy!” she hissed accusatorily.

“Pointy?”

“Hawkeye? Arrows? Pointy.”

She looked at him, at the cage, and over in the direction of the voices. “You KILLED him?!”

“No! Um, well he got hurt, but he’s alive.”

“Then what are you doing HERE?” she frowned at him.

“Bribing cat girls with their own penthouse full of cream and cabana boys to let me out?” he said hopefully.

She padded off toward the argument.  He sagged.

After a very short while she came skidding back in. “You are in so much trouble!  They’re arguing over killing you or putting you up for auction.”

“Let me out? Please?!”

Her ears swiveled back and forth. “I’m going to help you, but you owe me.”

“Sure! Sure anyth‑“

“You could end up dead anyway, but”‑ she glanced in the direction of the argument‑“that’s a risk no matter what.”

He was waiting for her to open the cage or something when she took off at a dead run back out the door she’d come in.

“Wait! What?! Come back?” _Gone._

Unfortunately, the sounds of argument were getting closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes the next chapter gets unpleasant. sorry? No major character deaths though.


	4. Electric Boogaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bad guys prove that they are , in fact, the bad guys.  
> (TW, bad guys being nasty to a helpless Tony, death threats, non consensual touching, injury, etc)  
> yes the title is awful, i blame Fluffy.

It didn’t take long for the argument to spill into the room.

Some of the people Tony recognized; some he didn’t. Most of them looked human enough, unless you caught a detail here or there, but a few of them… a few of them didn’t.

“He shot his owner; we kill him and lose the body. He’s just too dangerous,” said a… person... with green fur.

The woman who had lured him in‑ _and given me the drugged scotch dammit_ ‑ was shouting, “I fetched him in, I get to KEEP him. Besides, I can pass.”

“Horrible thing to do to good scotch,” Tony muttered.

A few of them turned his way almost instantly. _They must have damned good ears, even if they don’t swivel._

“Oh, you’re up.” The speaker was ordinary enough except his eyes were blue. Bright blue. No whites, just… blue. He didn’t look friendly.

“Look, several of us have expressed an interest; one of us takes him and breaks him in. Simple,” said a normal looking guy.  Tony somehow had the feeling he was a VERY bad person to end up with.

Green Furred Guy said,  “As long as his owner is still breathing, you can’t keep him.”  He tilted his head. “Maybe one of us could, I dunno… pet sit? Until Hawkeye is better?”

Tony realized suddenly that the Green Furred Guy looked like a real life Mr. Grinch, kind of.

“No! Hawkeye was too soft on him, and he got shot.  Someone needs to break him.”

Tony really, really, didn’t like how this was going…. at all.

“Just shoot him, for Chrissakes.”

“I want him.”

“You want his money!”

“Just because you can’t pass…”

“Just because you CAN, you fucking bitch!”

It went on like that, and on, and on.  Tony kind of tuned them out and tried to figure out if there was any way to get loose‑ it didn’t seem so.  Any of his gear would make short work of the lock, but as skilled as he was with it, he wasn’t going to pick the lock with his dick hanging out and his hands tied behind his back.

Which was probably why he didn’t see it coming when someone grabbed him out of the cage.

“So? We run a little test,”  grinned the fellow currently  holding  his arm in a grip like steel. “We find out how hard he’ll be to break, we have a few free samples, and then we start bidding.”  The guy grabbed  Tony’s ass with his other hand and squeezed.

Tony started fighting.  He wasn’t Iron Man without his armor, but his team did have regular martial arts classes.  Tony found himself perversely thanking Hawkeye for teaching him to fight with his hands tied behind his back. He sadly realized he was holding his own mostly because the people trying to get hold of him weren’t the ones arguing to kill him.

There was a bright flash of electricity and Tony went down twitching.

_Taser? No, that guy. His hands were smoking…_

Taser Dude walked over with a smirk.  He ran a finger down Tony’s chest; it felt like a violet wand. _Oh shit._

The guy started working him over.  He seemed to be WAY too intent on hitting him in the groin.  Tony distantly heard arguments still going on.

Tony tried to fight but his muscles kept spasming from the electricity.  Taser Dude flipped him over.

“You know,” Taser Dude said quietly, as he ran electric fire down Tony’s back, “I bet I could get you to behave yourself pretty fast.”

“Please, please stop…” Tony hated begging.

Then Tony froze in terror as Taser Dude slid his hand between his ass cheeks.

“Dave, stop it. You don’t own him yet,” someone complained at Taser Dude. _Taser Dude was called ‘Dave’. What an utterly banal name_ , Tony thought.

“So? I can break him pretty easily I think.” And Taser Dude‑Dave‑ shocked him right in the balls.

Tony screamed and seized so hard he felt something snap.  For an unknown time everything was just tremors and agony. When any kind of thought started up in his head again, he heard the arguments going some more.

It seemed that the “just kill him” faction had lost. Green Furred Guy was lying on the ground; Tony hoped he was unconscious and not dead.

 _Hawkeye had taught me to fight, just in case I got kidnapped again,_ Tony thought woozily. _And he hadn’t done anything like this.  I hadn’t appreciated the guy, obviously._

Someone hauled him around, his shoulder and ribs whited out with pain.

“You broke him.”

“That was the point.”

“I MEAN I think he’s damaged.”

“So?” Dave crackled electricity off his fingertips in front of Tony’s eyes.

Tony tried to move and screamed as his shoulder shifted.

“Now hold still, or I’ll shock you some more,” Dave smirked down at him.

Tony was used to attempted kidnappings, but they usually wanted money, or tech. This guy? This guy wanted _him_.

Tony held very still and swallowed hard.

Dave started running his hands over him.  Sometimes just a bit of electricity crackled on his fingertips, enough to make Tony painfully aware of his helplessness.  He didn’t move; he didn’t dare, not even when Dave started playing with his balls again.

“See? Easy.  I’ll take him home and have him tamed down in no time.”

_Oh dear God, no, just shoot me._

“What the HELL do you think you’re doing?” a very rough voice snarled.

Hawkeye moved into the edge of Tony’s view. He was limping, bandaged, burned, and he looked like hell.  Tony had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

Some of the crowd looked ashamed. _Crowds get caught up in things, probably a few of them wouldn’t have gone this far._

The bitch with the scotch‑ _how had he ever thought she was attractive?_ ‑ answered him, “You couldn’t keep him in line; he put you in the hospital.”

“Which is none of your concern,” Hawkeye growled.

“Well, you know, Birdie,” Dave said as he straightened up. “It seems he can be taught pretty quickly, if someone tries.  You were being too kind to him and you got burned.”

Hawkeye looked like he might be in agreement with that. “It’s still my business, Dave.  He’s still my problem, not yours.”

“Well, you know, for the good of everyone involved, I’ll just be taking him home and‑“

“Like FUCK you will.”

Dave stalked forward. “Oh? You look like a strong breeze would knock you over, Birdie. Your HUMAN”‑he said it like it was a curse‑“did that.”

Tony felt a hand grab his ankle and start sliding him slowly over the floor.

“He’s hardly just a normal HUMAN, you fucking lunatic.” Tony noted that Hawkeye didn’t use the term ‘human’ like it was a slur. “He’s got enough weapons to‑“

“Take any of us out,” one of the others finished. “Which is why he’s HERE once he put you in the hospital.  He’s too dangerous.”

Tony really hated sliding on his bare ass across this floor, really he did. Especially with his arms in cuffs still behind his back, but he was pretty sure it beat the alternative.

Someone else said, “Sam was offering to pet sit…”

“What happened to SAM?!” Hawkeye snarled.

There was a babble of voices as people started ‘trying to explain’.

The hand dragging him stealthily off the floor turned out to be the cat girl. She came up and whispered in his ear, “Can you get up?”

“I dunno,” He whispered. Given his shoulder and ribs? He doubted it.

“This looks like it’s going to be bad. Nothing good comes of a bunch of us having a real fight,” She said very quietly. “If it starts to get louder, you better try to keep up, because I’m going for cover.”

She started dragging him slowly further away.

He heard Dave’s voice: “If you can’t control a HUMAN, why should you get to keep him?”

“Those are the RULES you asshole.” _Yup, that was Hawkeye._

Then there was a smell of electricity and a lot of screaming, and the cat girl yanked him up by his uninjured shoulder and said, “Run!”

 

 


	5. Bolt and Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> big fight. heroes win. its not over

Dave threw an electric bolt at full power at Hawkeye. He obviously expected to kill him, since that might have done the trick when Hawkeye WASN’T injured.

_Thank you Tony for making me drill against your god be damned repulsion beams.  It saved my life when YOU tried to kill me; it may save me against him._

Hawkeye’s ability to dodge was pretty shitty compared to normal, right now, but it was still pretty good.  He picked up one of the other sons-of-bitches that had been arguing for stealing Tony and threw him into Dave. Dave reflexively fried him.

Hawkeye dropped and stayed down.

Two of the fried guy’s buddies lit into Dave, and Hawkeye started throwing stage lights, band equipment, and people into the mix, strategically.

_***“If you can’t do anything else, make the fight confusing.” Black Widow had said once.  “If you can, get them to shoot each other.”***_

Hawkeye grinned. _I owe you another one for combat advice, Red._

One of the women pulled out a gun and pointed it at Hawkeye.  Hawkeye just laughed, and spun her to face a different direction. Her shot went into the crowd and half of them turned on her; she went down screaming.

All the lights went out, then back on, and then out again. The overhead speakers screamed static and then a voice spoke from every speaker in the room: “If you value your lives at all, you will all stand down. Now.”

Hawkeye lay on the floor‑ _which seemed like a really good idea anyway_ ‑ as everyone stood down and the club owner sent in her people.

When Hawkeye managed to roll his head to the side‑ he seemed to have lost a bit of time‑ there were injured being laid out, medics treating a few people, a couple of blanket-covered bodies, and a LOT of people with their hands clasped behind their heads. _Good._

The club medic finally got over to him. “Hey, Hawk… you look like shit.”

“You should see the other guy,” they both said in unison, and Hawk started to laugh.  _Ow, that hurt._

“They were actually trying to steal your…”‑the medic searched for a word‑ “pet?”

“Teammate, Bruno,” Hawk said firmly. “He was just scared, and mad.”

“Have you considered slightly less dangerous pets?” Bruno  snorted. “Or teammates?”

“Well, never expected to have one, ever, so… no.  And as to teammates, well…” he shrugged. They both knew that the Avengers very public battle against the aliens had only worked because they were tough as hell, even if they weren’t exactly mutants.

The mutants had been doing their own fighting against aliens in New York, after all.

Danny, the club manager, was suddenly standing over them. “Think you can get up?”

“Maybe?”

Danny picked him up like he was a child and helped Hawkeye get to a chair.

“From what I heard, Sam”‑he nodded at the Green Furred Guy who was  being  treated across the room‑ “argued for  just having someone pet sit Tony until I got out, but the rest were‑“

“We’ll sort it all out from the video.” Danny shrugged.

Hawkeye suddenly looked around, “Where is he?!”  _Shit, with all that power flying around? And Tony obviously injured?_

“Sit. Stay. We’ll find him.” Danny nodded and walked off.

 

Tony had run, trying to follow an increasingly blurry figure until he couldn’t anymore.  Running with your hands behind your back sucked any time‑with broken ribs and a shoulder screaming for mercy? It hadn’t taken too long before he’d stumbled and passed out.

He’d woken up blissfully out of pain.  In fact… he felt a little high… He laughed, “Hey, I quit that stuff.”

“Oh bloody hell; he’s high as a kite.” _That was Hawkeye’s voice_. “I think you overdid the dose.”

“Bite me, Hawk.  He’s pretty badly damaged, and you DON’T want him to feel me re-setting his shoulder.” _Don’t know that voice._

There was a moment of pain, but it didn’t really matter right now.  Tony giggled.

There was more talking, most of which just didn’t seem to matter.  Then there were some noises that sounded like gunshots.  Tony tried to get up.

“Lie down.” That voice was familiar…

He stared blearily at the girl, “Kitty Kat! Nice kitty…” He tried to get up again. “Gunshots mean hero stuff, gotta go…”

“Oh wow, they gave you the GOOD drugs,” she said, pushing him back down.

Tony giggled, “I’m weak as a kitten.”

She snickered at that.

He vaguely recalled an extended conversation about her modeling? And that she wouldn’t stand out that much on a runway… and her being too short… before he passed out again.

The next time he woke up, he hurt everywhere AND he felt hungover.  He started dry heaving over the side of the… table? _Whatever._

“Ginger ale?” said the cat girl helpfully, waving a glass full of ice and amber liquid.

“Bless you.”

_She really did have sharp kitten teeth,_ Tony decided _, but once you got used to it, it wasn’t too bad._

“What happened?”

“I got help. I said I was getting help.”

He blinked a lot. “You got Hawkeye?”

She nodded. “He’s your owner.  He’s the only one who could help.” 

“There was a fight?”

“Ooooh yeah. Dave tried to fry him.”

He started shaking as he remembered ‘Dave’.

“Um, um… um.” The cat girl panicked a bit as she tried to figure out what to do. “He’s dead? He can’t hurt you now?” she said hopefully.

“D-dead?”

“Yeah.  He survived the fight I guess, just.  But he got executed.”

“Executed?”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye’s rough voice said, and then he was sitting down next to the table Tony was on. “People who threaten our whole society don’t get to walk out of here alive, Tony. I tried to tell you that.”

“I don’t get it.”

Hawkeye sighed. “Anyone who kidnapped you to just stash you someplace until they could reach me? Pardoned.  Anyone who kidnapped you to kill you because you were a risk? Pardoned with a ‘never do that without talking to the grown ups’. Anyone who was trying to keep you for themselves? Well, they  just got a world of trouble from more directions than you can name.”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “And anyone who started a fight‑ knowing that kind of attention can get us killed‑when they didn’t have to? Pretty much got executed.

“So Dave would have been dead on several counts: he tried to steal from me, he attacked me, he started a powered fight, AND he damaged the club.”

“Well, don’t damage the CLUB,” Tony said drily.

Cat Girl shook her head, “Bad idea.”

Hawkeye shrugged. “The entire LOT of them is now in debt up to their eyeballs to the club owner for dragging them into this, AND making the club clean up the mess.”

“Hey!  You are gonna tell them I didn’t‑“ Cat Girl yelped.

Hawkeye ruffled the hair behind her ears. “Natch, Kitten. No sweat.”

“I still owe you a penthouse and a bunch of cabana boys,” Tony said, smiling faintly.

“What?” Hawkeye stared at him.

“He was offering me stuff to let him out of the cage.  I told him I would get help.”

“She dragged me away from the fight, too,” Tony said tiredly.  He held up a hand in Cat Girl’s direction. “I owe you a couple.  If I make it through this, you’re in cream for life, ok?”

She giggled. “I think he’s still high.”

“Probably not, he sounds like that a lot,” Hawkeye said. “Can you go tell Danny you’re ready to tell him your side?”

“’Kay…”  She kissed Hawkeye on the forehead and patted Tony carefully. “Pointy?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t be too mad at him.” She ran off.

“She’s a cute kid,” Hawkeye said, and then started coughing.

“Uh, you ok?”

“I’m supposed to be in the hospital. You put me there.”

“Oh.  Um... right. Sorry?”

“You’re gonna be.”

“Just…” Tony swallowed hard. “Just don’t let me end up with any of those psychos.  If it comes down to that just have them find my body somewhere and… look after everyone, ok?”

Hawkeye sighed.  “Listen and listen good, Tony.  With me in the hospital, because of you, you scared them.  People do really stupid stuff when they’re scared.”

“Noooo… really?” Tony drawled sarcastically.

Hawkeye grinned at him, “Yeah. Ok. I told Bruno you were just scared.

“Anyway, you are going to have someone watching you every minute until I get back.  You even show the slightest flicker of doing anything dangerous, and there are a LOT of scared mutants who figure they’ll only be safe with you dead.”

“That was kind of my thought about you, actually,” Tony said sadly.

“I probably could have explained it better, but I was angry as hell,” Hawkeye sighed.

“You have to be publicly punished, Tony.  The same rules that let me walk you out of here alive‑ the same rules that meant Dave got executed for trying this shit‑“ He stopped as he saw Tony shudder at the mention of Dave.

“Tony, I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I’m the only protection you have. MOST of the mutants were just scared and trying to protect themselves, but there are a small number of mutants who would be happy to own you, or hurt you, Tony.  They aren’t ALL stupid enough to bring you HERE.  Understand?”

Tony nodded, “Got it.”

“Now to find some way to cover this up.”

_Hawkeye looked exhausted.  He wasn’t thinking clearly, because the answer was obvious...  Well, maybe having to cover up so many of my scandals just gave me practice._

“If it will help… and keep me away from those psychos… I know just how to do that.”

 


	6. leave it to the experts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> non graphic sex description.  
> non graphic hospital description

Tony had Hawkeye take him to, as he put it, “the grownups”.

“Tony, you damn well better at least pretend you understand the words ‘contrite’ and –“

“I don’t,” Tony said. “You know that. What I do understand is business.”

“Great, I had to break out of the hospital just to watch you commit suicide.”

The looks on the faces of the assembled mutants as Tony and Hawkeye walked over was incredibly amusing to Tony. He kept fighting the urge to giggle.

“You’ll have to make allowances,” drawled Hawkeye. “He’s high as a kite.”

“Your Human put you in the hospital,” an older woman with peculiar features said.

“Yes, I did,” Tony nodded. “But right now, I think we actually have some mutual business.”

“If you can’t even keep a leash on him NOW, Hawkeye…” an ordinary looking fellow said in a really annoyed tone of voice

Hawkeye shrugged. “Do I tell you how to run your life?”

“He’s endangering all of us‑“

Tony cut in quickly, “I have a solution.”

“The solution would be to shoot you and dump your body,” said Danny calmly.

“Actually, no,” Tony said. “Ask Hawkeye:  if I’m dead, everybody is hunting for who did it. I can make this whole thing vanish.”

“That would be one hell of a disappearing trick,” said a woman in the dark; her voice sounded odd.

“Look, you have bodies, right? We find a warehouse no one needs, we put the bodies in it, and we blow it sky high.  Hawkeye shows up nearby with me, because he broke out of the hospital when a contact told him I was kidnapped. Hawkeye rescued me… from the kidnappers… who are all dead…” 

Tony nodded at Hawkeye, “Some of them were dead when you got to me, you shot a few, the rest died in the explosions they had rigged as some kind of failsafe.”

Hawkeye was looking a bit impressed; several of the rest of them looked dumbfounded.

“My condition gets chalked up to the kidnappers‑which is even true, really‑ and the evidence  is in itty bitty pieces  from the explosion, but no one is going to be digging THAT hard, since I’m alive.”

He looked firmly around. “If I was dead, they’d spend more time on it.”

Hawkeye looked at the rest of them. “That would work, actually. It’s going to cover this up a lot better than anything I came up with.”

“He already tried to kill you once.”

“Never again,” Tony said with conviction, shuddering.

Hawkeye shook his head, “Look. You all know me.  I never expected to have to keep someone‑ I never wanted to, never even thought it was POSSIBLE‑ and then I had it dumped on me. I didn’t handle it well. Tony was scared; we were both angry; shit happened.”

“It will have to be proven,” one of the people said; Tony wasn’t sure which‑ he was starting to get woozy again.

“Yes, it will. But I’m not in good enough shape to do anything, and right now covering this mess up is more important.”

“Will he back you up on the story? We can’t make him say anything he doesn’t want to.”

“Hey, I came up with it.” Tony slid down to the floor in a crumpled heap. “Just a nap first…”

 

Tony woke up with Hawkeye slinging him across a motorcycle and hitting the gas. “What? Hey!” Then suddenly there was an explosion to do John Woo proud: Tony felt the heat, and a piece of debris landed somewhere near them.  There were sirens everywhere, and gunshots, and Hawkeye was racing full speed through the city streets without his headlights on. Tony tried to hang on and realized his hands were back to being cuffed behind his back. They didn’t slow down until they passed every cop in the city going the other way, and only stopped when they saw the Avengers.

Hawkeye skidded his bike to a stop, holding on to Tony to keep him from flying off. Tony was sure there had to be mutant powers involved.

“Where were you guys?! Stark’s been hurt, we need medical stat!”

People were trying to help, there was an ambulance… The problem was Tony was so disoriented he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing. All he really remembered was that Hawkeye being around kept the people from hurting him, so he utterly refused to let go.

“Tony…” Captain America tried to pry him off of Hawkeye. “You both need to go to the hospital.”

Tony was in pain, sick, and every time he moved his shoulder was on fire, and he would… not… let go of Hawkeye.

“No! No! Don’t let them!” Tony locked his arms onto Hawkeye until there was a stabbing pain in his other arm and everything went black again.

“Well, I have to admit, it convinced them, Tony,” Hawkeye said with some amusement when Tony finally woke up.

He was in a hospital bed, with Hawkeye in the bed next to him. “Wha? Ok, it’s all jumbled, give me a minute.” Tony tried to pull his scattered memories back together. “They agreed to my cover up idea?”

“Basically, with a few minor modifications, yeah.”

“What did you guys use?! A fuel-air explosive?”  Tony remembered that blast. Movie producers worldwide would have sobbed with envy.

“From what little I saw? Looked like pot luck. Everyone brought something and blew it all up at the same time.”

“Couldn’t you have been a bit gentler?”

“No.”

Tony sighed.

“You wouldn’t let go of me.  Widow finally tranqed you,” Hawkeye snickered.

Tony’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t know who they were. I thought it was THOSE people again.”

Hawkeye stopped snickering and looked tired. “Ok, yeah. That would be kind of scary.”

“Kind of!?”

The nurse came in and adjusted Tony’s meds and fussed at him.  She didn’t leave until Black Widow showed up.

“I’m on duty for the next couple hours, get some sleep,” she said kindly to the nurse and showed her out.

Tony was opening his mouth to say something when  Widow walked over and started yelling  at Hawkeye about being an idiot, leaving the hospital, endangering his life… all while waving a knife in a truly terrifying fashion. Tony decided not to interrupt.

“..and if you do that again I will make a new uniform out of your hide!”

Hawkeye just grinned, “Nah, it’s all scuffed.”

She glared at him. “True.”

“Widow… Honey…”

“HONEY?!” Tony yelped, at which point they both looked at him. “Uh... sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt… sorry.”

Widow started to get up to walk over to Tony‑ “I am very glad you‑ AWK!“ ‑when  a sheet  grabbed her and pulled her back into the bed with Hawkeye.

In less time than Tony could imagine, she was restrained by a sheet and held onto Hawkeye’s bed.

Hawkeye was grinning evilly. “I haven’t had any in weeks, you know.”

Widow looked wide-eyed and panicked. “Hawkeye have you lost your MIND?! He can see you!”

 _Oh_. “So are you a mutant too? Or what?” Tony asked resignedly.

“What?! He knows? But‑“

“I will explain it all,” Hawkeye said, “later.”

He grinned at Widow, and the sheets let her go. “Haven’t… had… any.”

“You’re impossible!”

“Uh huh, so you wanna do this the easy way or…?”

She shoved him down in to the mattress and snarled, “You are in NO shape, you idiot.”

“Don’t make me get  creative with a whisk, babe.”

She glared at him but Tony could see a smirk on her lips. “Will you behave yourself and stay in bed if I do?”

“Maybe.”

Tony was then in the unfortunate position of being in the bed next to Black Widow giving Hawkeye a blow job _‑ No, not “a” blow job; clearly “THE” blow job_ ‑against which all others were to be compared. It was unfortunate because his arms were immobilized. _If I live through this, I may kill him for THIS, not for the mutant part.  Assuming my balls don’t explode.  Oh God why does she have to make that  moaning growling noise…._

When they were finally done… finally… Widow slid into the hospital bed next to Hawkeye and put her head on his shoulder, carefully. “Ok, when did he find out?”

“You know,” Tony said in a strangled voice. “If you wanted to kill me you COULD have just used the knife.”

Hawkeye grinned at him and scratched his nails down Widows back. She arched her back and growled.

“STOP IT,” Tony begged.

“He was following us. He followed you to your cooking classes.”

“What?! I never saw him!” She tried to twist around to glare at Tony but Hawkeye just held her still.

“Then he followed me.”

“And he saw you do something?”

Hawkeye sighed. “Not… exactly.  He walked right into a mutant meet up.  They caught him.”

“I thought you said they kill people who find out.”

“What did I tell you the other option was?”

“Slavery, but…” She looked over at Tony. “Him? He doesn’t even follow strong advice!”

“Thanks a lot,” Tony grumbled.

“Yeah, he’s mine now.”

Her eyes narrowed. “When?”

Tony said guiltily “Uh… right before I started being on time to all the press conferences? Remember when Hawkeye pulled me out of some club because I’d been ‘drinking too much’?”

“When the suit went rogue… You were TRYING to hit him?!”

“Y-yes.”

She leapt for him. Luckily an invisible force grabbed her and kept her up in the air. She went to throw a knife and her hand wouldn’t come back down. “Hawkeye let me kill him!”

“Widow…  It’s dealt with. Done,” Hawkeye said tiredly.

Tony just stared up at an increasingly sullen Black Widow mobile. Finally he cleared his throat. “How well do you THINK I dealt with being told someone owned me?” He flinched, expecting the pain again.

“Hey! That didn’t hurt?!”

“Because you know she already knows.  If you tried to say that to the nurse, it would be the phone again.” Tony cringed. “Oh, and don’t tell her where it was.” Tony fervently shook his head NO.

“So the kidnapping?”

“Was a kidnapping,” Hawkeye explained. “They hurt him pretty badly.  One of my friends got word to me and I had to go rescue him.”

Hawkeye slowly lowered her to the floor. “He’s still going to have to prove he’s controllable after that, but we have a few weeks recovery time first.”

Tony really didn’t like the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a sullen black widow mobile ...  
> i was pleased with that.


	7. Watching and Being Watched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (smacks forehead) Sheesh, Hawkeye, you'd think you didn't KNOW the guy.

After that Black Widow visited almost every day, refused to even acknowledge Tony was in the room once the nurse was gone, and GOD DAMN IT she was showing off with Hawkeye. Apparently not being allowed to actually knife Tony, she was going to do it metaphorically.

The second day she’d managed to top the first day’s blow job, which Tony hadn’t thought possible.  The third day she managed a sixty-nine, without putting any pressure on Hawkeye’s injuries somehow.  The fourth day… Tony was certain that the sight of a stripped nude Black Widow riding Hawkeye while running her hands over herself was seared into his brain forever.

At least the Bastard stopped restraining his hands, Tony thought as he, yet again, jerked off one handed to Black Widow making… noises… while they did things. 

Tony had stopped actually watching after the fifth day; frankly, watching the contortions Black Widow was capable of made his back hurt.  Also he thought his dick might explode. She was totally showing off to drive him crazy.  Apparently she wasn’t going to get over being mad at him lightly.

When they told him he could finish his recovery at home, he was dressed and standing at the door at a speed that defied reason.  _If I have to listen to those two one more day…_

“You’re going to be watched,” Hawkeye said flatly from the bed.

“Yeah, you said so.”

“Don’t do anything, Tony.  I really don’t want to have gone through all of this for nothing.”

 

So he got home, and everyone hugged him, and he talked about how he owed Hawkeye, and he went to bed and woke up screaming.

_Oh. Great, did they do that?  That I can’t sleep without screaming nightmares unless he’s in the room? Fucking bastard if he knew that_ … Tony was thinking as he staggered out into the rest of his apartments to get a drink.  His hand was shaking as he poured the scotch, glanced in the mirror and who the FUCK was on his sofa!

He spun scrambling for a weapon and swearing to sleep with a blaster from now on… nothing.

He pulled up security logs and activated motion sensors, and generally turned his apartments into a kidnapping proof fortress. And retreated to his bedroom until the team showed up.

“Nightmares,” was all he said. Especially after he saw Black Widow glaring at him.

He didn’t try going to his lab until the next day.  Every time he glanced into a reflective surface he swore he saw someone‑just for a minute.

This kept up. No matter where he was in his tower, he kept catching glimpses of someone. Whenever he managed to sleep, he swore someone was in the room with him; anyway, half the time he woke up from terrifying nightmares about Taser Dude.

He stopped eating, and started living on Scotch by day five.

Day seven, Black Widow showed up, threw him into the shower and ordered him to get dressed. He didn’t even ask her where they were going‑he didn’t care.

She drove them to the hospital and dragged him in.

“Hey Babe, you’re ear…” Hawkeye trailed off.  He’d been sitting up in bed playing a video game.

She threw Tony at his bed; Tony only barely managed to catch himself. “Deal with this.” She glared at Hawkeye.

“Uh, Honey? What?”

“He’s been jumpy, the bags under his eyes have bags, and he drank most of the last two days away.”

“Tony?” Hawkeye  questioned.

“Nightmares,” he muttered. “And I keep imagining someone’s in the room. Sensors don’t show anyone, though.”

“I said you would be watched…”

“By people you only see in mirrors?! Who don’t show up on heat sensors? What, you have VAMPIRES watching me?”

Black Widow raised an eyebrow, “You have that backwards: vampires don’t show up in mirrors.”

“I have no idea who got assigned to watch you, Tony. Or how.”

“I’m staying here,” Tony said firmly. “I’ll buy earplugs.”

Hawkeye just sighed, “I could move back to the tower, if you can deal with having Physical Therapists come in.”

“I’ll buy them their own floor if it makes the vampires move out.”

Which is how Hawkeye ended up moving back to the tower early, and a private Physical Therapy department was installed in the tower.

When Hawkeye went to go to his own rooms, however, Tony started to follow him.

“Da fuq?”

“Vampire ghosts,” Tony said firmly. “There are vampire ghosts in my bedroom, and my lab, and most places. I’m staying with you.”

Hawkeye thought about throwing him out, shrugged, and  waved at the bed.  Partway through the night he ended up restraining Tony, because the bastard flailed into him; it hurt.

He woke up lying on top of a spread eagled Tony, who was glaring at him.

“What, you wanted to sleep with me?”

“One: you drool. Two: I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh.” He untied him and watched him go. He was attractive enough, really. Not as physically fit as some of the team, but working on the suits didn’t make for a geek’s typical physique, and they did train.

“Why did you tie me down?”

“You kicked me.”

“Oh.” Tony looked thoughtful. “Yeah, most folks complain about that, its why I don’t sleep with most people, just have sex.”

“You are really, really weird, Tony.”

Tony arched an eyebrow at him, “Says the mutant telekinetic with the crazy assassin girlfriend.”

Hawkeye leaned back. “You DO understand that once I get a bit more recovered we’re going to have to  demonstrate that you’re controllable.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that but you haven’t explained it.”

“You proved you were a threat, then proved that I DIDN’T control you when you shot me.” Hawkeye sighed, “So I’m going to have to show up, probably back at the club, in public, and prove that I can.”

“Uh, how?”

“Well, there’s three or four traditional ways to do it…” Hawkeye was fidgeting.

“Uh huh. How bad?”

“I can publicly brand you.”

“No.”

“I can have you stand still, and not run, while I ‘demonstrate that I could kill you’. In my case, probably shoot an apple off your head or something.”

“As long as it’s an Apple and not a Stark Pad.”

Hawkeye blinked. “Uh…”

“JOKE, Hawkeye, JOKE. I do know the stories. Yeah, that would work.”

“You’d be ok with that?” Hawkeye was fairly incredulous; he’d expected him to argue.

“Yeah, I mean I did shoot you. Fair’s fair,” Tony said shrugging. “Third?”

Hawkeye shrugged. “Sex, but we don’t have to if I can‑“

“That works, too.”

Hawkeye  choked…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, honestly based on how Black Widow was going on, Tony had to have started to wonder about his bedroom skills.


	8. If you don’t know me by now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosplay is NOT consent  
> but it helps cover the fur

Hawkeye choked and spluttered. “You’re okay with that?”

“What was it you said, that first morning? ‘I’m not into forced sex’?” Tony shrugged, “Good. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  That…” Tony shuddered, “miserable excuse for a sentient that was trying to get into my pants before you showed up? He was, totally.  And from what I could tell, so were a lot of the other ones.”

Hawkeye looked embarrassed, “Yeah, well, we get put down so much by you normal‑“

“NORMAL?  Do I look like I’m NORMAL?” Tony practically shrieked.

“You aren’t a mutant.”

“Well, no, but don’t insult me by calling me normal!”

Hawkeye grinned, “Forgive me‑ you’re a lunatic.”

“I am a brilliant egotistical maniac with limited self-preservation and a lot of exhibitionist tendencies. Get it right.”

“Sure.”

“As you already said, I’m not JUST into girls. I don’t think screwing my teammates is a good policy, though.” Tony looked unhappily at him, “You… aren’t a teammate.”

“No,” Hawkeye sighed, “not anymore.”

“Look, as long as we’re talking about sex, can you get Widow to chill it down a bit? Seriously?”

“Yeah, I’ll try.” He grinned at Tony, “But I swear she was outdoing herself on the sex when she was being mad at you.”

“I know,” Tony growled. “I nearly sprained something.” After a lengthy pause, Tony asked, “How did she find out, anyway? About you.”

“Not all that long after we got together‑and that’s a different story‑ we got captured: some bozo with a death trap‑ you know.”

Tony nodded, “Better than no death trap; at least you get a chance.”

“Yeah, well this was a really well-made death trap.”

“Oh, that’s never good.”

Hawkeye shrugged, “The only way out was straight up.  He’d taken my bow, but he didn’t know I could boost Widow up.   She could have left me, you know; instead, she came back with rope.”

“Why didn’t you boost yourself out?”

Hawkeye shrugged, “For whatever reason, my abilities don’t work on myself.  I have no idea if it’s real power things, or a psych block, but… I can’t.”

“Oh.”

“She came BACK for me.  Even though she knew I was a mutant.”

“Is… is that weird?”

Hawkeye stared at him. “Yeah…” he said slowly.

“Like I care?”

“Most people do.  Your equipment gets used to‑“

“My weapons got used all sorts of ways, it’s why I stopped making them.  I didn’t like what people were doing with them.” He shrugged, “I never THOUGHT about mutants, one way or the other.”

“Right. Well, it’s weird.”

“So she’s known since then, but she doesn’t know where the club is?”

“If I want to risk my OWN life by trusting someone, that’s my problem.  Doesn’t give me the right to risk anyone else.”

“Oh...  but I know about the club…”

“Right, you know about more than just me, so more than just me got involved.  If you ONLY knew about me, I would have just sat down and talked to you.” He sighed, “Or killed you.”

“Oh, right... Speaking of which… I owe a Kitty Kat a bunch of money.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, I mean I get that she looks kind of weird, she must have trouble getting a job…”

“I think she writes romance novels.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Well anyway… I owe her.”

“I’ll let her know. The public demo is going to have to be at the club, you know.”

Tony made a face.

“With all due respect, Hawkeye, I never want to see that place again, ever.”

He shrugged. “At least one more time. After all, the trouble started there, and the fight was there, so if you want people to believe that this is settled, it’s gonna BE there, probably with a week’s notice.”

Tony sighed, “Right, of course it does.  Can I ask you a question?”

Hawkeye shrugged.

“If one of the typical ways to prove I’m controllable is sex, and those… that…” Tony took a deep breath, “THAT guy was pretty clearly planning on raping me‑ is that what usually happens to people who get caught?”

Hawkeye looked thoughtful. “I assume so.  It’s one reason I told you that you were lucky you ended up with me.”  He looked at Tony, who never had to hide anything and sighed, “Tony, let me ask you something for a change.  You saw some of those people, some of the mutants, how well they DON’T pass for normal?”

“Yeah.”

“What are their odds for a boyfriend? For a marriage? For anything?”

Tony blinked a lot. “Uh… I never thought about it?”

“I pass, Tony. I can pick up a girl in a bar if I want; I can date a mundane.” He frowned,  “Well, I mean other than the whole super hero team and the agency, but in theory…”

“Okay, I get it.”

“It gets lonely.”

“I’d rather be lonely than have someone forced to be with me.”

“Maybe you would,” Hawkeye shrugged. “But then you’ve ALWAYS been able to at least pick up some comfort in a bar, or bring someone home.  That’s not really a relationship, either, but it’s better than nothing.”

“That’s a low blow.”

“True, though. Been there, done that.”

Tony nodded. “I bet that green-furred dude and Kitty Kat could pick up some major  sex at a furry con, though.”

Hawkeye shrugged, “I don’t know that they don’t. It is New York‑ Comic Con is POPULAR with my crowd.”

“Oh shit… yeah…” Tony stared at him. “Cosplay covers a lot of issues, doesn’t it?”

Hawkeye nodded. “I never got over the Los Angeles Comic Con, though.”

“Why? What happened there?”

“Came in fourth in a Hawkeye lookalike contest,” he winced.

Tony didn’t stop cackling for fifteen minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on several real life celebrities who came in out of the money on their own lookalike contests


	9. Dance for me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look at that, an update!  
> Tony has to prove that he's controllable... or fake it well.

Other than the fact that Tony slept in the same room with Hawkeye, nothing much seemed different to most people.  When someone asked about it, Tony just said “Nightmares” and people dropped it. After all, Hawkeye had saved him from the kidnapping and they knew he’d had nightmares until he came back to the tower.

Black Widow continued to have hate sex at Tony–that was all he could call it really, where she was determined to try to drive Tony insane as well as virtually hurt his back, ribs, neck, and… most joints.  Tony couldn’t fault Hawkeye for being happy with the sex, but it was a lot easier to cope with once he got better noise canceling headphones.

Eventually, though, Hawkeye admitted they were almost out of time.

“So, you want to shoot things off my head? Or sex?” Tony asked him thoughtfully.

“I’d RATHER shoot things off your head.”

Tony felt a flicker of annoyance alongside the relief. “I was voted sexiest guy in‑“

Hawkeye held up his hand, “Mostly because I’m not into doing that in a crowd.”

“Could have fooled me with Widow!”

“Ok, some of that was being vindictive: you hurt me.”

“Some of them tried to kill you too.  They did a shit lot worse to me.”

“Do you WANT me to fuck you?”

Tony looked him up and down thoughtfully. “Honestly? You’re not my usual type, but you’re not bad looking, and if Widow’s noises are anything to go by your skills are good… so maybe?” Hawkeye was just blinking at him as if he’d hit his head or something. “I DON’T want to get fucked as a put down in front of that bunch, though, no.”  Tony sighed, “But that’s what it will come to.”

“Uh, no, the rules‑“

“All due respect, ‘pointy’, but an awful lot of those people want to see me get taken away from you, don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“So you go ahead and propose shooting stuff off my head, but they’re going to try to find a way to force something so I’ll balk, so they can get me.”

Hawkeye had to admit it was likely. “Shit.”

 “You’ve got an OUT on branding me… the agency would see it on a medical exam, so they can’t push you to do that, they can try, but  they can’t make you do it.” he smirked, “So what do YOU think they’ll push for?”

“Sex.”

“Whatever else you say, Hawkeye, those people are PEOPLE and that means that if they want something, or want you not to have it, they will  use every dirty trick in the book, and a few that aren’t as long as they don’t get caught.  They had no problem torturing me or attacking their fellows for this before, and I know you don’t believe you shot ALL of the bad apples–pun intended– so trust me on this one. I know for politics and this is just down and dirtier politics. Believe me if some of the other corporate guys could get away with it, they would.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Hawkeye had to admit some respect for Tony: most people hated mutants for no reason, and Dave and company had given him a lot of reasons, but it hadn’t made much difference as far as Hawkeye could tell–he was just cynical about people.

“We go in and try the William Tell routine, and let them push and you argue, and I’ll look all freaked, and you make sure your people are ready to identify the ones who would rather cause a PROBLEM than play fair…” Tony sat back and tried not to jostle anything that hurt. “And then we go through with it, if we have to.”

Hawkeye made a face, “I suppose it’s the best option, better to be prepared.”

“If you really don’t find me that interesting…”

Hawkeye sighed, “Actually, yeah I do.  Like I said, lucky for you I’m not into forced sex or I would have had you by the end of the first week.”

“Well you have good taste. So if I may make a few suggestions?”

*

Walking back into the club gave Tony a panic attack and Hawkeye had to give him a few minutes, and a Scotch, before the walls stopped closing in on him.

“I’ll get everything set up.” Hawkeye nodded, “You’re favorite babysitter will watch you.” and he walked out leaving Tony with…

“Hey, Kitty Kat…”

She padded over, “You sent a check.  You sent a big check.”

“No, I sent a small check, because I had no idea what kind of bank account you had.” Tony nodded, “but I figured it would tide you over until I saw you again.”

“You are a really strange human.” She nodded.

“Am I?”  Tony shrugged and then winced at his shoulder. “Well, normal people don’t invent super suits, or hang around with the Avengers, so…”

“I mean I don’t think you actually care that I grew my ears and they aren’t animatronics or something.”

Tony looked her over, “I’m CURIOUS about them, I don’t CARE about them–in the sense that they are interesting but they don’t bother me.  I’ve seen stranger stuff.”

“I thought you hated mutants since your stuff is used against us.” She was fidgeting a lot.

“I didn’t pay much attention… before,” Tony sighed, “I was just drinking and trying my best to not pay attention to anything at all, and then my whole life blew up.” He looked back at her, “I’ve been tortured by one or two mutants, and… oh… twenty? Lost count I think… Non-mutants: you’re still ahead of the odds.”

“…Oh…um…”

“So assuming I survive this one… I understand you write romance novels?”

She squeaked, “Yes? I mean it’s one of the few jobs that still pays you and doesn’t expect you to show up at a signing… I just write under contract for the big names… kind of like ghostwriting.”

Tony was about to continue when Hawkeye came back in. “And we’re up.”

“See you Kitty Kat!”  Tony waved as they went out: she followed them out at a bit of a distance.

“No way have I had enough to drink for this.” Tony muttered.

Hawkeye seemed tense, “Neither have I, and you started this.”

Apparently the announcements had been made before because they just cleared a space in the middle of the floor and Hawkeye stepped over to the microphone.

“Understandably neither myself nor Tony Stark are in top condition,” he glared down a few comments, “At least partly because some people tried to start a war instead of letting this be handled by tradition.”

Danny rather blandly recited, “By tradition since there has been question about how safe it is to leave your human alive, it has to be proven.”

There were immediate calls for branding and Hawkeye just drawled, “Oh, right… and the AGENCY won’t notice THAT during a physical exam…”

Tony tried not to look smug at the expected calls for it, Hawkeye’s practiced retort, or the grumbled unhappiness when the reasonable people had to point out that he was right.

Someone–and Tony couldn’t swear to it but he thought it was the ‘Christian Lifestyle’ reporter– called out for having Hawkeye have sex with him, except she didn’t put it that politely.  That got picked up by a lot of people, probably some out of a desire to see him put down and some because they wanted a free show. Green Furred Sam, somewhat to Tony’s surprise, was one of the people arguing for shooting an apple off Tony’s head–as were Kitty Kat, Danny, and several of the senior people–but the majority were going for sex as Tony had predicted.

Tony tried to brace himself for it and Hawkeye looked sour, but they had discussed this–

A slightly distorted female voice came from the speakers, “He fought Hawkeye in the straps last time… I say that’s the test.”

The entire club went silent. After a slight hesitation Danny spoke up, “A vote from the club owner–into whose venue the human trespassed, and the others started a fight–brings the debate to a halt.” He nodded at Hawkeye.

Hawkeye stepped forward and nodded politely, “By tradition then…” several people scrambled to bring out leather straps.

Hawkeye pulled Tony forward, “All you have to do is not fight me.”

Tony took off the sunglasses and handed them to Hawkeye, “Don’t leave choke marks on my neck this time? Because it’s really hard not to fight that.”  He walked out to the center of the open floor and spread his arms trying not to look at the crowd.

The leather straps pulled Tony from the floor and juggled him in midair.

Tony tried to hold still, but flashbacks… he didn’t dare run, couldn’t fight… he was biting his lip and trying not to think…

Hawkeye played him like a marionette, turning him like a dance partner if the dance floor was over all of their heads.

The crowd cheered and yelled–to be fair most of them would cheer and yell at any show– but Hawkeye noticed that Tony was… he was stiff, and his body was shaking in the straps… after turning him and moving him enough to make the point, he stopped, holding him up over head in straps as if they were a hammock.

“I think I proved my point.” He shouted to the cheers and boos of the crowd; then he looked at the assembled elders and lowered his voice, “Now he’s having a panic attack, are we done?”

Danny stepped up, “Settled.”  He said and nodded. A lot of the crowd looked disappointed but one of the club employees started up a light show, all the colors of the aurora borealis playing over the ceiling in time to the music…

Hawkeye let Tony down carefully.  “Tony?”

Oddly it was the lights that helped Tony come back to himself a bit.  He’d been off the ground panicked and remembering, and then rainbows were dancing... he was lowered to the ground and there were still sheets of color…

“Tony?”  Hawkeye looked at the tension and blank look and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, we at least pretend you’re walking out under your own power.” He put the sunglasses back on Tony’s face, “how you can see with those…”

Tony took them back off his face, hands shaking, and looked back up at the ceiling. “That’s beautiful…” he took a deep breath and tried to get his feet under him, grateful for the invisible force holding him up.

Hawkeye smiled, “Yeah… showy as hell, isn’t it?”

“Think I could hire them for one of my parties?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, while i wont link this to my series directly, go read the work that inspired it. This is ostensibly fan fic written BY a fan fic character of mine.
> 
> NOTE: the "writer" doesn't know most of the details we assume from movies, these are real people. she doesn't know about Jarvis, for instance. She also doesn't want to give away some things she does know..


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